SEC wants Ripple to share financial statements and contracts to determine remedies SEC wants Ripple to share financial statements and contracts to determine remedies
Ripple may have to pay penalties related to its institutional sales of XRP.
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Updated: Jan. 11, 2024 at 9:20 pm UTC
Cover art/illustration via CryptoSlate. Image includes combined content which may include AI-generated content.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said in a Jan. 11 filing that it aims to have Ripple provide certain documents in an ongoing legal case.
Specifically, the securities regulator requested a court order compelling Ripple Labs, Inc. to produce financial statements for 2022 and 2023.
The SEC also asked for Ripple to be compelled to produce contracts governing institutional sales of XRP from after the SEC’s original complaint. It noted that Judge Analisa Torres previously identified institutional sales as unregistered securities sales and offerings within the pre-complaint period.
Furthermore, the SEC said that it seeks to have Ripple answer a single interrogatory (that is, a formally written question) about the amount of proceeds that it received from institutional sales after the filing of the SEC’s complaint, but for contracts that it entered into before the complaint.
The SEC said that those two types of documents and the interrogatory will help Judge Torres determine whether the court should impose relief, including injunctions and civil penalties, as well as the amount of civil penalties that may be applied.
Ripple argues that it should not face injunctions because its future XRP sales are exempt from registration and securities laws. The SEC countered this by asserting that the the financial information it has requested is “fundamental to tailoring a penalty to deter future violations.”
SEC v. Ripple has largely concluded
The SEC originally alleged that Ripple’s sales of XRP constituted unregistered securities offerings in December 2020. Ripple gained a partial victory in July 2023 when Judge Torres ruled that certain sales (including programmatic and exchange sales) were not securities offerings. However, Judge Torres also ruled that Ripple’s institutional sales were securities offerings, favoring the SEC.
The dispute was resolved in October 2023 as the SEC dropped charges against two Ripple executives. The case largely concluded in December 2023 as Judge Torres issued a summary judgment on certain remaining matters.
Despite the recency of the SEC’s decision to request new information, previous reports noted that the court could impose penalties on Ripple.
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Mike Dalton
Before transitioning to crypto writing in 2018, Mike studied library and information sciences. Currently, he resides on Canada's West Coast.
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The XRP Ledger is a decentralized cryptographic ledger powered by a network of peer-to-peer servers.
Ripple
Ripple is a US-based technology company which develops the Ripple payment protocol and exchange network using XRP, the digital asset native to the XRP Ledger.